Content area
Full Text
"Can you believe it? Someone just asked if this was the AGO!" exclaims Charles Pachter, returning from the phone.
I laugh. Pachter has a gallery down the street from the Art Gallery of Ontario called the Moose Factory, currently hosting the "Barns Exhibit" (pun fully intended, as is always the case with this artist). The exhibit features such masterpieces as "Barn Free", "Barn Yesterday" and "Barn Again". The latter was named by Margaret Atwood, who has been a close friend of Pachter's since they met at summer camp.
Outside it is a cold, grey, wet December day. We are sitting, protected from the elements, on furniture from miscellaneous bygone eras in Pachter's roomy home/studio. It is a skillfully renovated and converted storefront, ("Two floors living space, two floors working space--une machine a habiter," he explains) in the heart of Toronto's Chinatown. As we chat over coffee and peppermint tea, Canadian history books lie strewn across the coffee table. The walls surrounding us are covered with Pachter's paintings of bold, Canadian images: several moose, a Group-of-Seven-like landscape, figure skater Barbara Ann Scott blissfully unaware of a looming Canadian Tire tire. Pachter has been described as a pop historical painter. He uses his art to explore the theme of Canadian identity in a clear and humorous way. He explains: "I'm interested in social issues. I'm not just interested in making art that's decorative or pretty, or self-indulgent art that the public often doesn't understand. I'm a communicator."
Art has been a passion for him since childhood. Once, at age two, his parents went out and left him with a baby sitter. When they returned, he recalls, "I had emptied my diaper and was using the contents, gleefully smearing the wall. The baby sitter was going crazy trying to stop me! But I had found a new source of creativity." According...